Soc Sci Med. 1985 ; 21(6): 685-92.

Women heal women: spirit possession and sexual segregation in a Muslim society.

Constantinides P.

Sexual segregation and sexual asymmetry are prominent features of Northern Sudanese society. Women's sexuality and fertility are powerful and polluting, carrying with them the danger of dishonor and needing to be controlled and directed to their 'proper' social ends by men. Men pay for their daughters' infibulation, retain the right to dispose of them in marriage, honour their wives after childbirth, and claim children of the union for their patriline. However, it is women who actually practice infibulation and who keep firmly within their hands all the ritual surrounding vital stages of their life cycle. Throughout, women symbolically assert the fundamental nature of their reproductive power. The healing cult of the zar fits into this symbolic system with its woman-centred, woman run curative ritual.